Robert Louis Stevenson

Scottish novelist, poet, and essayist Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh on November 13, 1850. His father, a distinguished lighthouse engineer, urged him to study engineering at the University of Edinburgh, but Stevenson soon began preparing for a law degree. He graduated in 1875 but never practiced. Instead, he spent his time writing and traveling. He wrote short stories and essays that were later published in the collections The New Arabian Nights (1878), Virginibus Puerisque (1881) and Familiar Studies of Men and Books (1882) as well as travel accounts, including An Inland Voyage (1878), a description of a canoe trip in France and Belgium, Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes (1879) and The Amateur Emigrant (1883), an account of his journey to California.